The Backdrop to the Beautiful

Recently I began bravely/tremblingly tackling all of real life again (everything that was already fairly demanding made somehow nearly impossible simply by the addition of . . . one small, helpless, floppy, new person).

During one moment of frantically trying to get rolls out of the oven, hand one screaming child a spoon, stop a toddler from coming in from the backyard with chicken poop on their foot (yes, that), and call several missing older children to join us (because I had actually made dinner and so help me they better come appreciate it!), all while Starling was fussing and crying to be fed (which is no quickly-taken-care-of process), I hurriedly attempted to pry open a slightly jammed drawer (to retrieve the spoon being cried for) and managed to, instead, pull free a thick splinter -- that wedged itself completely under the nail bed of my right index finger. 

It was very bad timing. 

It hurt. 

I yelled. 

And, not very kindly, told everyone to stop screaming at me, as I searched, in a panic, for misplaced tweezers, and failed several times to get a hold of the splinter (and wondered despairingly what one is to do if they can't pull free something from under their fingernail). Eventually I pulled it out and was able to staunch the rather tremendous flow of blood. 

But kids needing dinner, and a crying baby, and all the associated mess hadn't disappeared in the meantime. 

It all seemed such a fitting contrast to the peaceful, beautiful and POWERFUL feelings I'd experienced while quietly holding my new little Starling during the brief period of time-out we'd enjoyed.

I knew that everything magnificent and brilliant I'd sensed was real. The most real truth in all of this. But I never get over how odd it is that everything mighty and significant and lovely . . . plays out amidst a backdrop of stress and mess and exhaustion and . . . ORDINARY. 

It always does! It's where everything good exists! In the middle of . . . everything else.

It makes it very hard to see anything more than tiny glimpses of the might and importance and beauty of the things we are living and choosing and doing -- though I imagine perhaps that is part of the why of it. Maybe we never would have understood or seen at all without the contrast. Maybe it's a huge part of our growth and test -- recognizing all that is right and a gift in the midst of everything trying to drown it out. 

I'm not sure. 

But I read a little article I liked in the most recent Ensign magazine. In it, a man told of a time in his life when he was serving as a bishop. Work was demanding. Family was demanding. He was exhausted. He'd come home late one night after a slew of interviews only to realize he had something that needed fixed on his car so he could drive it to work the next day. As he was fixing it, he began a whining prayer asking God why He couldn't lighten the load a little. In the middle of the prayer, he had some words come strongly to his mind -- three times. They were simply, "This is it!" 

This was life. This was mortality. These exhausting daily demands were the experiences he signed up for -- the very things that would help him become who he was meant to be. 

I typically recognize big trials as events intended to help us grow, but less often do I realize that the daily, recurring, tiresome struggles and frustrations are this hugely necessary component of our mortal existence. Seeing, on occasion, the lofty things beyond that are a huge gift, but, in a way, all of this is a gift. All of it is intended to change us and challenge us and give us the stress to push against that will make us something vastly greater than we ever could have been otherwise. In that sense, I suppose I should not only be trying to see the beautiful in the midst of the messy, but to recognize and allow the mess itself to create beauty in me!

It reminds me of this C.S. Lewis statement that Elder Renlund is fond of quoting:

"[Mortals} say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. . . . The Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven.'"